Surrender to Chasing Cars
by LemoneTrees
Summary: The strain and torture of the past few weeks had chipped away at her outer layers, leaving her raw and exposed and vulnerable. She had been so close to breaking point. So close. But she never could have expected, that it was he who would unravel her. Update 30/10/13: Rainstorm
1. Blizzard

A/N: This was written when i was feeling rather down and bitter about a certain loss I had, so I apologize if the emotions I felt at the time overpowered my ability to keep the characters...in character. If you found that it was way too OOC or happen to dislike it obscenely for any other reason, do leave a review so that I am aware of the mistakes I am making, and so that I am able to improve on my characterization skills. However if you are flaming the pairing, I suggest you keep your comments to yourself.

Inspired from a cutscene in the game. Title inspiration taken from Snow Patrol's 'Chasing Cars'.

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><p>Standing there with her fist nestled in the small of his back, it felt like it was just the two of them – even if they were just talking about Serah a second ago. Because in this field of long grass and wild flowers, it <em>was<em> just the two of them, with only the shadow of Cocoon in the corner of her eye to tell her that she couldn't believe in miracles.

She ruthlessly tore herself back to reality, to being realistic. "No doubt," she said, barely hoarse. "You taught me that." And she knew he agreed. Because for him it was all too easy to have faith, as easy as he loved - and therefore damned her for all eternity.

If she closed her eyes she could imagine that this moment meant as much to him as it did to her. If she closed her eyes she could pretend that it would – could – be like that forever; just she and him, close together, deliriously lost in the wilderness of Pulse but it didn't matter at all, when they were all they needed and the world could easily be forgotten. Just like that. Perhaps if she closed her eyes she would have found that she cried more freely in the dark where it was black behind her lids; and perhaps if a single tear hadn't leaked onto her cheek shamelessly before that, she would have made that discovery standing in the middle of a blissful nowhere, staring at his strong back with her forehead pressed against his shoulder.

The strain and torture of the past few weeks had chipped away at her outer layers, leaving her raw and exposed and vulnerable. She had been so close to breaking point. _So close_ that she feared it would occur when she was amongst all her companions, beating the ground with her fists for all to see. But she never could have expected, that _he_ would be the one to unravel her.

She blinked at the depth of sorrow she felt knowing that it was this man, this idiotically, theatrically, dramatic dolt of a man, who could've made her the happiest she's ever known to be. She shed more blasted tears realising that he felt the exact same way, with Serah Farron, and would die for Serah in a heartbeat and would for her as well, but only because she was Serah's older sister. Because of an obligation. Because of guilt. Not because he didn't think he could live without her. And she wiped those tears away mercilessly with her free hand, as silently as possible, when she knew she was being ridiculously weak and imbecilic by giving her heart to a man who wouldn't give his in exchange; and that he would inevitably be her fucking _brother-in-law_ and she wouldn't do anything about it because even she couldn't do that to Serah. Precious Serah.

Searching her mind, she started to wonder when exactly she began harbouring adulterous thoughts, and it came to when she punched him in front of his fiancée, in front of her _sister's_ crystalised form. Twice. Because he was so damned passionate about everything and so _alive_, that she had begun to realise she hadn't been living at all for the past few years. Which scared her and angered her and shook her so hard that after getting over the denial, she decided she didn't want to go back to being dead anymore.

She inhaled deeply the scent of his raw self amidst the sweeter tinge of the flowers. There was something painfully heartbreaking about knowing that he, this clumsy, ignorant idiot, felt like home. Because it was a long time since she had one, and she was so far away from it now that she could never go back. In a selfish moment of utter bitterness with the taste of salty tears on her tongue, she wished the world would just disappear for her and leave them both. Just as they are. How simple that would be, how easy it would be to forget. To forget that he loved Serah the way he would never love her, to forget that _she_ still loved Serah fuck it all, to forget that she was her fucking _sister_ of all people and as hard as she may wish for her own happiness, she could never rob her dear, younger sister of hers. She couldn't do it. Serah always came first. Always.

She knew Snow agreed.

Which was why she was so angrily, maddeningly confused when she turned to go, refusing to let him see her, that she felt him turn to reach for her; but missed. She didn't turn back, but her determined strides did falter microscopically, and her traitorous eyes let yet another tear spill over. Caught between mortification and indecision on what she should do, what she was_ supposed_ to do (_Run. Now.)_, she halted suddenly. That was when she hated herself more for giving in to her weakness, but what could she do when he asked her to stay with just her name?

She will burn in hell when she finally digs her own grave deep enough, she knows. Did he know that too? She wondered when it is the devil will claim her soul to expose her in all blasphemed glory. And she found her answer when he gently reached for her hand, gripping her fingers tightly and fisting his hand in hers.

She sighed, so frustratingly conflicted, but defeated and exhausted. Burning in hell. "Let's…not talk about Serah. Please," she whispered.

She heard his soft breathing amongst the wind circling them, and felt the heat from his body as he moved closer. Closer to her.

"…Okay."

She could never have him. But just for that moment she could pretend that she could. And she could imagine, to dream, that maybe he wanted her too.

And so there they were, with his fist in her palm and temple pressed to the side of her head, existing, plain and evident as day. And there she felt insane because she was supposed to be in hell, but she felt alive and safe and just so _peaceful _that it may just be the day she found heaven. When she found a home again, with him.

She couldn't help but smile, and she didn't care at all if he saw her being happy. Because she was, honest to god, she was fucking happy with him. Damn it all to heck.

"Are you…sad?" There was a crack in her voice and a hitch in her chest, contemplation and anxious hope coursing through her veins. Asking him if he was happy right now, with her, was too much and she wouldn't cross that line.

His temple pressed closer against her hair when he shook his head, astonishingly, remarkably, typically. "No…I'm not sad." And because they weren't talking about Serah she didn't know what to say anymore. "It's nice, like this…" She could hear the tentative undertone in his voice, and the shameless sincerity strewn above so blatantly.

She thought then, that she really could bear to see the world go if it meant spending aimless hours, chasing wistful, beautiful, impossible cars around their heads. Seeing Cocoon searing the corner of her vision, she closed her eyes, leaning into his warmth. Knowing that he could very well see, in a bout of bitter conceit, she cried freely behind closed lids.

Wordlessly he embraced her tight and snug and as she felt a tear that wasn't her own fall onto her lips, she thought she died just a little bit more.

And she died little deaths here and there each time she looked at him after that, when he smiled at her – full on – like she wasn't the tear in his pocket; but Lightning, in the midst of a storming blizzard.


	2. Rainstorm

_Well I don't know how, and I don't know why_

_When something's living, you can't say die_

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><p>It's hard to breathe when her mind fills the blind spot between his face and the back of her neck but she does anyway, inhaling a smell that was wild grass and dew and vapour drops. It lasted a moment barely brushing too long and too short at the same time and she had her face warmed up by the fire which he had struck. He moved into her field of vision, opposite the glow and their hands met over the kindling flame to exchange a log. The cold manifested in chills stroking her spine as she tried not to shiver. Once in a while, his bare stomach would clench and a ripple of spasm catch his biceps tensed. But despite the torrential downpour and plain fact that they were trapped perhaps until morning, as their presence gradually came to occupy the cave, there was a retrospective feeling of acceptance and she knew that night they'd be safe. They let both their coats dry on warming stone.<p>

Firelight slowly glowed to gently light the shelter which they sought salvation in, and in a strange synchronization of purpose they laid out the food and worked. The muffled patter of torrential rain echoed in their wake. She tried not to think of how she wouldn't let herself feel, and she was alone, with him, for the first time since she felt like she understood something tranquil about not making war and so she let herself simply be. Her chilled fingertips slowly relinquished needles of numb frost in the orange glow of the fire, and got to work naturally. He sat down beside her. Shoulder to shoulder, knees touched. He had a stubble growing featherlight on his chin, like the way healed scrapes must tingle when kissed and at that moment she imagined they had skinned knees. Fingers deftly picked up herbs dried and fruit preserved; the metal tool in her hand glinted gold as they peeled and sliced curls of fibre that fell into a pile with his chunkier misshapen work. While they ate she thought of blissful nothing, uncharacteristically letting her mind past without consequence. Against an ambiance of distanced waterfalls crashing onto loosened soil, firelight cocooned her into reflecting its translucent glow, and the slow of her revelations on the contours of his hands shaped the beginnings of invisible creases around her eyes.

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><p>The storm started right in the middle of their scout for food, when they were too far from camp to make a break for it like mad wild creatures riding upon the waves of wind and wilderness. Or rather, he suggested it, while she stared, incredulous, and left him to save her own skin. Naturally, insanity chuckled and followed. Secretly, she was grateful for the deterrence that was the uncontrollable force of nature. There was a newfound sense of uncharacteristic non-violence about her, a week into their uncertain unofficial unspoken understanding of truce; and it unnerved her enough when her own eyes caught his, on more than one occasion silently smiling at her and her cheeks flamed in retaliation.<p>

_('You're an idiot.'_

_He grinned. 'Well you're smiling at one, so are you.')_

She deemed it prudent not to trust herself to speak any further.

Hands worked deftly, picking and choosing, foraging like an old soldier pro used to feeding herself and the extra company of lonely. Compared to that, he made a crowd. Yet, he remained quiet too and slowly, she gradually grew accustomed to entertaining the idea of this change in company. A harmony. And she lapsed into a forgotten state of mind borne from history and past tenses and things innocent like joy, from a time when she knew it so well like the edge of her blade. A person whom she had forgotten from a lifetime ago. The armada that were her doubts and cynicism and their liege commander, duty, oddly felt content being absent from the battlefield, on a rarity holiday into oblivion along with family. They took hers with them. And she was left by herself. As herself. Just herself. Solidarity surged. And she filled her lungs with air, with the scent of tangy rainclouds. Feeling like something of a thunderbird. _Eclaire._

'Lightning.'

Stormclouds flashed white. And for a moment, she was living both and they were one in the same.

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><p>He lay with his back against the wall and torso toward the flames, with closed lids his being rose and fell gently with each inhale of their silence. She turned to face the mouth of the cave. Tendrils of ivy hung from its lip, curling so slightly out of the wet. A cascade of water down the entrance fell sheer like a cloak of misty day curtains, two inches from her face refreshed by the scent of wet earth and freckled with stray spraying droplets. Her own eyes stormed grey. Her hand tentatively reached out, straight and flat. She inched towards the water. Closer, closer, then like a shield she broke through the curtain - to see sheets of pouring, dripping rain. A million liquid crystals that fell from the sky it made her think of a lone, solid tear that was somewhere far but not distant enough, within the recesses of his grey pockets lying across the floor. Yet her own eyes remained moist if only from the pouring mist and she found she liked the rain. It dripped off the leaves of the overarching oak. It trickled down in streams of the gentle slopes its grand roots made and the sound, the thunder of an army of water droplets crashing onto the bold bare earth was like a tuneless symphony that sparked off her wild soul. The side that wasn't stained by guilt and loss and regret, the piece of her that had fragmented nicely into a cohesive whole. And on its own, it told her strange alien things like <em>she was free. She could love.<em> She was painfully balancing the barrier between believing and disbelief; for on either side she'd fall into the same, sinful truth. Nothing went out in the rain. Nothing liked the rain. At that moment she recognized it as the storming reflected within her conscience and she took it, and made it her own. And by then she was already truthfully drowned in the thought of conceiving an idea of peace, when she was wishing a flood could take the world and they'd get lost running from the Noah's ark that never gave either of them any salvation. She closed her eyes , to drink in the rain.

She felt his eyes before she heard his voice and turned to him as he said: 'What are you doing there?' His own eyes seemed to swirl like a maelstrom. A whirlpool of familiar mystery and unabashed curiosity. To which she simply replied: 'It's raining.'

His mouth quirked asymmetrically but blue orbs glittered in sync when they said: _well, duh._ Nevertheless, they laid sights on her hand parting the curtain, and betrayed him a look that felt like he was truly seeing the rain, for the first time. By now her outstretched hand turned its palm, and a vein of cold water flowed down her forearm. He shuffled his bulk across the granite floor, laying his silver-blonde head beside her resting hand. And between the cold cleansing of the rainstorm and the flickering warmth of his breath on her knuckles, she found an unspeakable freedom in the way his cheek touched her grazing fingertips; and within the light of his skin and the glow of her own peace, he inevitably found his way into the small crook of her heart, and all at once she found who she was.

Reservations about unfaithful gods and legends were dispelled when his fingers took her wrist, which was all it took for her to leave the rain to wash away their sins; the pulsing of his heart against her own enough to convince eternity that they were only, ever human. And they were only reality. Somewhere along those lines of promise and safety, her vestigial resolve finally broke. Guilty burdens were slowly shed from the weight upon her shoulders, when they slid down as salt upon her cheeks.

Lightning.

'_Eclaire.' _Her lips whispered.

And somehow, as her forehead witnessed his mouth gently tracing the curvature of her, she felt he always had known.

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><p>AN: Unexpectedly, I had written something out of the blue and since similar themes were present I thought it made a compatible companion piece to the first chapter. Do provide any constructive feedback, honest critiques are always welcome. I took a different angle to Light and Snow here, more toned down instead of the full on angst and explosiveness which I usually associate with them.


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